Four Pennsylvania Children Discovered Their Parents Were Dead From Heroin Overdose After Trying to “Wake Them Up”

A Pennsylvania couple was found dead yesterday from a suspected heroin overdose after their 7-year-old daughter wasn’t able to wake them up. Jessica Lally, 25, and Christopher Dilly, 26, were found unresponsive in their apartment in McKeesport Monday night. They leave behind a nine-month-old girl, a three-year-old boy, a five-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl, all of which were in the home at the time they were found.

According to authorities, the couple might have been dead for up to two days before police were alerted. They were called to the house Monday at around 5 p.m. after Lally and Dilly’s 7-year-old daughter told a school counselor that something was wrong with her parents. She then proceeded to tell school officials that she was unable to wake them up. When police arrived at the scene, evidence of heroin was found in the room where the couple’s bodies were found. However, an autopsy will still be performed to figure out an exact cause of death.

How the couple didn’t lose permanent custody of their children remains baffling, especially considering how vocal Lally’s family was about her drug abuse. Earlier this year, Lally’s sister Courtney posted a Facebook status saying her sister was a drug addict and was raising her children in squalor. She even attached photos to prove it.

“This is how Jessica Leigh Lally lives with her children and Christopher Dilly,” she wrote. “Flood Facebook with this in till [sic] it gets to them I want people to see what dirty bad parents they truly are its [sic] so sad they do not care about their children.”

Later she posted a more elaborate message, saying that her nieces and nephews have medical and developmental issues because of her sister’s drug addiction.

“Let [me] tell you all a story about my drug addicted sister and her dirty boyfriend,” she wrote. “They don’t give 2 f*cks about those kids. Jessica left them almost every night by them selfs [sic] [while] she went and took care of her and her bf drug addiction.”

She continues to say that one of her nephews still uses diapers and can barely talk despite being four years old. The other boy, she claims, “[walks] like a baboon” and communicates with screams and grunts. Another daughter allegedly had to stay in the hospital several days after Jessica gave birth because drugs were found in her system.

At one point the Department of Children and Youth Services took the children away from the couple and placed them in the care of their grandmother, but Jessica regained custody not long after. The children have since been removed from the house and taken to a local hospital for evaluation.